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Lot Essay
Created in 1988 at the very pinnacle of Gerhard Richter’s career, Abstrakte Skizze 644‑3 is one of the 32 works in the distinguished series of Abstrakte Skizzen (Abstract Sketches). This work reflects a pivotal moment in Richter’s artistic evolution, when he was refining the dual strands that came to define his oeuvre: the celebrated photorealist paintings — exemplified that same year by the iconic and enigmatic Betty — and the increasingly ambitious abstractions that secured his international reputation. Among the 9 Abstrakte Skizze paintings created in 1988, the present work is surged with the powerful visuals influenced by a period of profound cultural and political transition. It was created just one year before the fall of the Berlin Wall and in the same year as Richter’s first major North American retrospective, which toured leading institutions including the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, elevating his global stature to unprecedented heights.
Richter began the Abstrakte Skizze series around 1988, continuing into the early 1990s, as part of a broader trajectory of abstract investigations. Replacing traditional paint brush, his distinctive use of the squeegee — drags layers of paint across the canvas — produced textured, layered kaleidoscope that blur the boundaries between representation and abstraction. This innovative technique is evident in Abstrakte Skizze 644‑3, a rare example within the Abstrakte Skizze series that fully incorporates this signature squeegee approach. Further developed in parallel with the Abstraktes Bild series, the Abstrakte Skizze series reveals an intimate and exploratory dimension of Richter’s creative practice. These compact, visually intricate paintings function as experimental arenas in which he deployed gestures, chromatic tensions, and material effects that simultaneously informed his monumental canvases.
In the present work, the artist’s gestures appear direct and unfiltered, alive with the energy of experimentation. The work captures the curiosity and restless inquiry that characterized Richter during this period, when he was actively engaging with — yet maintaining his own distance from — the legacies of Abstract Expressionism, Minimalism, and Conceptualism. Richter’s own reflections illuminate the philosophical grounding of his abstraction: ‘A picture presents itself as the Unmanageable, the Illogical, the Meaningless. It demonstrates the endless multiplicity of aspects; it takes away our certainty, because it deprives a thing of its meaning and its name’ (D. Elger, Gerhard Richter: Catalogue Raisonné Volume 4, Nos. 652-1-805-6 1988-1994, Ostfildern, 2015, p. 16). In this spirit, his abstract paintings expose the very act of image-making, confronting the question of what an “image” becomes when it no longer relies on recognizable subjects.
Among the Abstrakte Skizze series, the present work is distinguished by its strikingly vivid chromatic intensity. Dominated by an expressive field of crimson red, the surface unfolds across a spectrum of tonalities — from cherry and rose to burgundy and carmine — each variation shaped by layered acts of application and removal. Through slender ruptures in the surface, flashes of blue and neon orange pierce the surface, like light breaking through the veil. These colors do not sit as static fields but interact dynamically, generating depth and motion that far exceed the work’s modest physical scale.
Through its visual and conceptual intricacy and delicacy, Abstrakte Skizze 644‑3 encapsulates the artist’s heightened power, holding a distinguished place within the Abstrakte Skizze series and marks an important moment of one of the most influential painters of the twentieth century.
Richter began the Abstrakte Skizze series around 1988, continuing into the early 1990s, as part of a broader trajectory of abstract investigations. Replacing traditional paint brush, his distinctive use of the squeegee — drags layers of paint across the canvas — produced textured, layered kaleidoscope that blur the boundaries between representation and abstraction. This innovative technique is evident in Abstrakte Skizze 644‑3, a rare example within the Abstrakte Skizze series that fully incorporates this signature squeegee approach. Further developed in parallel with the Abstraktes Bild series, the Abstrakte Skizze series reveals an intimate and exploratory dimension of Richter’s creative practice. These compact, visually intricate paintings function as experimental arenas in which he deployed gestures, chromatic tensions, and material effects that simultaneously informed his monumental canvases.
In the present work, the artist’s gestures appear direct and unfiltered, alive with the energy of experimentation. The work captures the curiosity and restless inquiry that characterized Richter during this period, when he was actively engaging with — yet maintaining his own distance from — the legacies of Abstract Expressionism, Minimalism, and Conceptualism. Richter’s own reflections illuminate the philosophical grounding of his abstraction: ‘A picture presents itself as the Unmanageable, the Illogical, the Meaningless. It demonstrates the endless multiplicity of aspects; it takes away our certainty, because it deprives a thing of its meaning and its name’ (D. Elger, Gerhard Richter: Catalogue Raisonné Volume 4, Nos. 652-1-805-6 1988-1994, Ostfildern, 2015, p. 16). In this spirit, his abstract paintings expose the very act of image-making, confronting the question of what an “image” becomes when it no longer relies on recognizable subjects.
Among the Abstrakte Skizze series, the present work is distinguished by its strikingly vivid chromatic intensity. Dominated by an expressive field of crimson red, the surface unfolds across a spectrum of tonalities — from cherry and rose to burgundy and carmine — each variation shaped by layered acts of application and removal. Through slender ruptures in the surface, flashes of blue and neon orange pierce the surface, like light breaking through the veil. These colors do not sit as static fields but interact dynamically, generating depth and motion that far exceed the work’s modest physical scale.
Through its visual and conceptual intricacy and delicacy, Abstrakte Skizze 644‑3 encapsulates the artist’s heightened power, holding a distinguished place within the Abstrakte Skizze series and marks an important moment of one of the most influential painters of the twentieth century.